Welcome to the 21st century. The Cold War, WWII, and WWI are over.The 19th and 20th centuries' class conflicts and colonial issues are behind us. "Oppressed proletariat" and "European expansionism" are no longer relevant. Religious fanatics want their beliefs to rule the world. Free people want to stay that way. Here's my view of the 21st century's great conflict -

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

South Korea Computers Crash, Causing Coffee Cash Crisis

"Computer networks at major South Korean banks and top TV broadcasters crashed simultaneously Wednesday, paralyzing bank machines across the country and prompting speculation of a cyberattack by North Korea.

"Screens went blank at 2 p.m., the state-run Korea Information Security Agency said, and more than six hours later some systems were still down...."

Since the United States and South Korea do joint military drills, which annoys North Kora's government, it's possible that North Korea is behind the attack. Then again, maybe not.

United Nations imposed sanctions on North Korea after last month's nuclear test, which gives the North another motive for scrambling South Korean computers.

The good news is that South Korea's government agencies, power plants, and transportation systems weren't affected.

The bad news is that this outage was a cyberattack, not the result of glitchy software or a squirrel's fiery annihilation in a power line's transformer.

Coffee Cash Crisis at Starbucks

South Korea's economy is one of the world's top 20. I doubt that being plunged into a cash-only world for a few hours will do much damage. On the other hand, I'm glad that I wasn't on coffee break in Seol when the ATMs died.

"...Some customers were unable to use the debit or credit cards that many rely on more than cash. At one Starbucks in downtown Seoul, customers were asked to pay for their coffee in cash, and lines formed outside disabled bank machines...."
(Associated Press, via FoxNews.com)

Cyberattack: or Really Bad Luck?

Machines break down sometimes. South Korean might have just been unlucky. Very unlucky.

In this case, so many systems going down at the same time seems - - - improbable.

I'm sincerely glad that I don't have the task of figuring out what happened in South Korea. Sorting through technical data may be much easier than separating accurate eyewitness reports from flights of fancy.

"The Korea Information Security Agency had reported that an image of skulls and a hacking claim had popped up on some of the computers that shut down, but later said those who reported the skulls did not work for the five companies whose computers suffered massive outages. KISA was investigating the skull images as well...."
(Associated Press, via FoxNews.com)

Speculation and Denial

A Korea Communications Commission official said that destructive code might have been spread from servers sending automatic updates and virus patches for security software. The key word is 'might.' Right now, so soon after the event, I'd be very surprised if investigators had traced the problems to their source.

That said, I think it's reasonable to assume that the outage wasn't an accident. North Korea's leadership apparently denies that they're running an Internet warfare unit. Maybe so, but that outfit is still churning out cold-war-style variations on the old 'capitalistic imperialistic warmonger' rhetoric.

The effect their policies have on North Korea's citizens being what it is, I'm not surprised: distracting folks from bread-and-butter issues might seem expedient, and that's another topic.

Back to the dean of Korea University's Graduate School of Information Security:

"Likely," "Probable," and Motive

"...Lim said he believes hackers in China were likely culprits in the outage in Pyongyang, but that North Korea was probably responsible for Wednesday's attack.

" 'Hackers attack media companies usually because of a political desire to cause confusion in society,' he said. 'Political attacks on South Korea come from North Koreans.'..."
(Associated Press, via FoxNews.com)

I'm inclined to agree with dean Lim: someone probably wanted to mess with South Korean media to "cause confusion in society." Or frustration, anyway.

Consequences of today's attack might be a bit more serious than a few frazzled Starbucks customers. I don't think it's unreasonable to think that losing several hours of productivity, directly from out-of-service machines and indirectly from folks being a bit off their game after a disrupted schedule, might have at least a tiny effect on South Korea's economy.

More seriously, South Korea's servers are part of the Internet - so problems there could spread.

Not a Weekend Project

Whoever arranged for today's outage put a lot of effort into it. And, although it doesn't look like investigators know who the attacks planners were: this does seem to be an attack, the first of several.

"...Orchestrating the mass shutdown of the networks of major companies would have taken at least one to six months of planning and coordination, said Kwon Seok-chul, chief executive officer of Seoul-based cyber security firm Cuvepia Inc.

"Kwon, who analyzed personal computers at one of the three broadcasters shut down Wednesday, said he hasn't yet seen signs that the malware was distributed by North Korea.

" 'But hackers left indications in computer files that mean this could be the first of many attacks,' he said.

"Lim said tracking the source of the outage would take months."
(Associated Press, via FoxNews.com)

Coffee Breaks and Power Grids

I like living in the Information Age, but the benefits of fast global communication and continent-spanning power grids come with new problems.

The The Great Northeast Blackout of 1965 only affected 30,000,000 folks. About 100,000,000 people living in Java and Bali lost power in 2005, and back-to-back power failures in India last year set a new record: the July 30 and 31, 2012, events affected 620,000,000 people.

Since coordinating generators and transmission lines on today's scale involves software, 'throwing a monkey wrench' into the system can be done from the other side of the world.

Most of the serious discussion of 'cyberthreats' has focused on hacking into computers that control power grids, or ones holding secure information.

At least as disquieting, I think, is what could happen if someone managed to get into prescription formula databases, or got control of life support systems in a hospital.

Americas Interests.blog
an Australian's perspective
(on January 29, 2009 the author announced the end of new posts, and explained his reasons for doing so. He is, however, keeping the 21 months of accumulated posts on line, because of "the role that it plays in a larger ecosystem of information" - I recommend AI as an archival resource. )

Blog 4 Human Rights: Human Rights in Georgia (the nation)
News, Opinions, Videos and Photos (Why blogroll this? Georgia is about 10% Muslim, very near the Middle East: and human rights is a critical part of the War on Terror.)

Defenders Council of Vermont
"...our mission is to educate the citizens of Vermont about the nature, reality and threat of radical Islam, deepen Vermonters' understanding of America's heritage, honor the men and women of the armed services and their families, and support the efforts of others to help our armed forces work with local populations in foreign lands."

DefenseLink Blogger's Roundtable
provides source material for stories in the blogosphere concerning the Department of Defense (DoD) by bloggers and online journalists.

FactCheck.org "aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics". It's "a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania". From what I've seen, this non-partisan website must be quite annoying to all sides

Islamic Circle of North America
"... to seek the pleasure of Allah (SWT) through the struggle of Iqamat-ud-Deen (establishment of the Islamic system of life) as spelled out in the Qur'an and the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)"

Islamic Society of Central Florida (ISCF)
"...an organization which strives to serve the greater Central Florida community by catering to the social, religious, and educational needs of its Muslim inhabitants."

Muir S. Fairchild Research Information Center
A research resource for United States Air Force Air University students, "provided as a public service by Muir S. Fairchild Research Information Center and the Maxwell Support Division."

Muslims Against Sharia An organization of Muslims, presumably dedicated "...to educate non-Muslims about the differences between moderate Muslims and Islamists..." - with a curious way of practicing Peace, Love Light, (words in their website's logo).

1 Given a recent misunderstanding of the phrase "useful resources," a clarification: I do not limit my reading to resources which support my views, or even to those which appear to be accurate. Reading opinions contrary to what I believed has been very useful at times: sometimes verifying my previous assumptions, sometimes encouraging me to change them.

Even resources which, in my opinion, are simply inaccurate are sometimes useful: these can give valuable insights into why some people or groups believe what they do.

In short, It is my opinion that some of the resources in this blogroll are neither accurate, nor unbiased. I do, however, believe that they are useful in understanding the War on Terror, the many versions of Islam, terrorism, and related topics.

The Blogger

Brian, aka Aluwir, aka Nanoc, aka Norski
I'm a married guy, over 50, with four kids in a small central Minnesota town. Despite what's in my Blogger profile's "Interests" section, I'm only interested in three things:

* What exists in the universe
* What exists beyond
* What might exist

My background in history; a checkered work history, and guardedly hopeful attitude toward human goofiness, is off the fiftieth percentile: whether above, below, or to the side, I'm not sure.

It's a different perspective: and one which I believe sets this blog apart from most blogs dealing with this conflict.